Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-r7xzm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T02:20:47.959Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Use of medical services in the Factitious Disorder

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2020

A. De Cos Milas
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Hospital de Mostoles, Mostoles, Madrid, Spain
V. Gomez Macias
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Hospital de Mostoles, Mostoles, Madrid, Spain
M.L. Catalina Zamora
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Hospital de Mostoles, Mostoles, Madrid, Spain

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Invention, production or falsification of physical and psychological symptoms, are the core traits of Factitious Disorder. The aim is to assume a patient role.

Factitious Disorder is associated with high medical, personal and social costs. The reasons are that these patients are difficult to identify, they visit multiple physicians and have frequent comorbidity.

The objective of this study is to investigate the overuse of medical services by these patients. This is a case-control study including patients with the diagnosis of Factitious Disorder with Psychological symptoms in a Psychiatric Inpatients Unit. We analyze the medical and mental health history of these patients in childhood and adult age, the percentage of admissions that require and their duration. Length of stay in a Psychiatric Unit or other medical or surgical units in the last year and five years prior, and the average number of physicians consulted in the last year, are analyzed.

Patients with Factitious Disorder with Psychological Symptoms require more admissions at all ages. Their somatic episodes have a lower average length of hospitalization, although Cases remain at a Psychiatric Inpatients Unit double time that other patients and they visit double number of physicians. This frequent use of hospital cares supports the importance of an early identification of factitious symptoms.

Type
Poster Session 2: Anxiety, Stress Related, Impulse and Somatoform Disorders
Copyright
Copyright © European Psychiatric Association 2007
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.